"Robert Jordan - Conan 02 - The Invincible" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jordan Robert)

Conan opened his mouth for an acid retort, and at that moment the situation at the fortuneteller's table
flared. The Iranistani laid a hand on her arm. She shook it off. He clutched at her cloak, whispering
urgent words, hefting a clinking purse in his other hand.

"Find a boy!" she spat. Her backhand blow to his face cracked like a whip.

The Iranistani rocked back, his face livid. "Slut!" he howled, and a broadbladed Turanian dagger
appeared in his fist.

Conan crossed the room in two pantherish strides. His big hand clamped the bicep of the Iranistani's
knife arm and lifted the man straight up out of his chair. The Iranistani's snarl changed to open-mouthed
shock as he tried to slash at the big youth and his knife dropped from suddenly nerveless fingers. Conan's
iron grip had shut off the blood to the man's arm.

With contemptuous ease, Conan hurled the man sprawling on the floor between the tables. "She doesn't
want your attentions," he said.

"Whoreson dog!" the Iranistani howled. Left-handed, he snatched the Turanian coiner's Ibarri
sword-knife and lunged at Conan.

Hooking his foot around the Iranistani's toppled chair, Conan swung it into the man's path. The Iranistani
tumbled, springing up again even as he fell, but Conan's booted toe took him under the chin before he
could rise above a crouch. He flipped backward to collapse at the feet of the coiner, who retrieved the
sword-knife with a covetous glance at the Iranistani's purse.

Conan turned back to the pretty fortuneteller. He thought he saw a dagger disappearing beneath her
capacious cloak. "As I saved you an unpleasantness," he said, "perhaps you will let me buy you some
wine."

Her lip curled. "I needed no help from a barbar boy" Her eye flickered to his left, and he dove to his
right. The scimitar wielded by one of the other Iranistanis bit into the table instead of his neck.

He tucked his shoulder under as he dove, rolling to his feet and whipping his broadsword free of its
shagreen sheath in the same motion. The two Iranistanis who had been sitting alone faced him with
scimitars in hand, well apart, knees slightly bent in the stance of experienced fighters. The tables around
the three had emptied, but otherwise the denizens of the tavern took no notice. It was a rare day that at
least one man did not give his death rattle on that sawdust-covered floor.

"Whelp whose mother never knew his father's name!" one of the longnosed men snarled. "Think you to
strike Hafim so and walk away? You will drink your own blood, spawn of a toad! You will-"

Conan saw no reason to listen to the man's rantings. Shouting a wild Cimmerian battle cry, he whirled his
broadsword aloft and attacked. A contemptuous smile appeared on the dark visage of the nearer man,
and he lunged to spit the muscular youth before the awkward-seeming overhand slash could land. Conan
had no intention of making an attack that left him so open, though. Even as the Iranistani moved, Conan
dropped to the right, crouching with his left leg straight out to the side. He could read death knowledge in
the man's dark bulging eyes. As the gleaming blue blade of the scimitar passed over his left shoulder his
broadsword was pivoting, slashing through the leather jerkin, burying itself deep in the Iranistani's ribs.